If the voters had their say........what would they choose?
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/06/14/bushs_iraq_offensive.php>>>>>>>>>
A preview of that drama played out at the Take Back America conference in Washington, sponsored by the Campaign for America’s Future, where Kerry was cheered and Hillary booed (amid hisses and catcalls to “bring them home”). It’s one more sign that the apparatus of Bill and Hillary Clinton, which holds together the center of the party, simply isn’t willing to challenge Bush on Iraq, Iran or the war on terrorism.
Kerry, in an effort to turn the tables on Republicans, introduced a resolution in the Senate this week calling for the immediate withdrawal of nearly all U.S. forces in Iraq. The plan, according to the senator’s website , calls for “the redeployment of U.S. combat troops out of Iraq by the end of 2006. Only U.S. troops essential to completing the mission of standing up Iraqi security forces would remain.” Kerry also calls for the internationalization of the conflict:
The President
convene a summit that includes the leaders of the new Iraqi government, leaders of the governments of each country bordering Iraq, representatives of the Arab League, the Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, representatives of the European Union, and leaders of the governments of each permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, to reach a comprehensive political agreement for Iraq that addresses fundamental issues including federalism, oil revenues, the militias, security guarantees, reconstruction, economic assistance and border security.
Kerry’s got the right idea. My guess is that if Kerry’s plan were put forward to voters as the core of the Democratic Party’s 2006 election platform, the Republicans would be routed. Not only is that the smart thing to do politically, but it’s the moral thing to do as well. The U.S. presence in Iraq has become an unspeakable moral blot, the scene of war crimes, devastation and a clumsy (and as yet unresolved) effort to consolidate the U.S. empire in southwest Asia. The issue is not whether the war is “winnable.” The issue is that America has no business winning it. Imperial wars can be won. But they don’t deserve to be won.
Progressive and antiwar Democrats and activists can take comfort in the fact that the American public is slowly coming around to the notion that the war in Iraq is wrong. The endless bad news from Iraq, including mounting U.S. casualties and the horrific toll that the war is taking among Iraqis, will continue through November and beyond. The war crimes of Haditha will be revealed for all the world to see in black and white, when the Pentagon finally releases the full account of that cold-blooded massacre. The supposed victory achieved with the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi will prove ephemeral. And the government of Green Zone puppets under King Khalilzad will soon prove to be as ineffectual as the past so-called “governments” of Iraq.
But Rove might be right if he believes that the divided Democrats at home will allow the administration to escape once again with a narrow victory in 2006. The Democrats can spin the San Diego special election on June 6 any way they like, but the fact is that a Republican right-winger won a hotly contested seat in a race in which the predicted surge of energized, anti-Bush Democrats didn’t materialize. A lot more work needs to be done, and November is not that far away.
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